The Russian President’s press secretary has said it is regretful that Presidents Obama and Putin will not meet, but added that the Kremlin understood the US President’s difficult circumstances and will wait for another opportunity.

“We regret that the meeting will not take place because in
general there is an unconditional necessity for the continuation
of the top level dialogue, a great number of questions on the
bilateral agenda and also, first of all, the international issues
headed by Syria,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

Earlier on the same day Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty
Natalegawa announced that US President Barack Obama
had told his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that
he would not be going to the APEC Summit.

The move was reportedly caused by the US government shutdown – a
crisis caused by the inability of the various branches of power
to come to an agreement over the state budget.

Secretary of State John Kerry is taking part in the APEC summit
instead of the President.

Speaking at the APEC summit on Monday, Vladimir Putin noted that
Obama’s decision was understandable. “We see what is happening
in the US internal politics now and this is not an easy
situation. I think that the US president’s decision not to come
here is well founded. I think that if I were in his situation, I
also would not go,” he said.

The Russian and US presidents last met in St. Petersburg in early
September this year, during the G20 summit. Initially, Barack
Obama had planned to meet Putin during a visit to Moscow, timed
with the summit, but this visit was canceled, reportedly over the
two nations’ disagreements on a number of issues – including the
situation in Syria and the fate of NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden.

No agreements were reached in St. Petersburg, but the talks paved
the way for US support of the Russian plan to take Syrian
chemical weapons under international control. That was agreed
later by the two countries’ chief diplomats, Sergey Lavrov and
John Kerry.